installing FreeBSD in VMWare-player

[Manolis Kiagias]

 On 27/08/2010 3:17 μ.μ., Matthias Apitz wrote:
> El día Friday, August 27, 2010 a las 12:06:09PM +0300, Manolis Kiagias escribió:
>
>>  On 27/08/2010 10:24 ??.??., Matthias Apitz wrote:
>>> Is it possible that the data gets corrupt on an USB key after some time?
>>> I'm wondering why the system even is intact to be booted from...
>>>
>>> Will prepare the key again or just fill in the dumps I have...
>>>
>>> 	matthias
>>>
>> I've heard of stories of data 'fading out' from USB flash drives after
>> some period of complete inactivity.
>> Haven't experienced this myself though. Otherwise your procedure looks
>> fine and it shouldn't fail.
> A dump of the key gives several error messages:
>
> # dump -0au -f usb8.dmp /dev/da0s1a
>   DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Fri Aug 27 14:06:04 2010
>   DUMP: Date of last level 0 dump: the epoch
>   DUMP: Dumping /dev/da0s1a to usb8.dmp
>   DUMP: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
>   DUMP: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
>   DUMP: estimated 3980686 tape blocks.
>   DUMP: dumping (Pass III) [directories]
>   DUMP: dumping (Pass IV) [regular files]
>   DUMP: 52.81% done, finished in 0:04 at Fri Aug 27 14:15:35 2010
>   DUMP:   DUMP: read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [block
> 4992928]: count=8192
> read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [block 4992870]:
> count=10240
>   DUMP: read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [block
> 4992896]: count=7168
>   DUMP:   DUMP: read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [sector
> 4992928]: count=512
>   DUMP: read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [sector
> 4992870]: count=512
> read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [sector 4992896]:
> count=512
>   DUMP:   DUMP: read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [sector
> 4992899]: count=512
>   DUMP: read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [sector
> 4992931]: count=512
> read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [sector 4992873]:
> count=512
>   DUMP:   DUMP: read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [block
> 5032906]: count=10240
> read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [block 5032928]:
> count=9216
>   DUMP: read error from /dev/da0s1a: Input/output error: [block
> 5032946]: count=7168
>
> I will re-create the key or even use another media;
>
> 	matthias
>
Try recreating, preferably newfs the key first. Don't be surprised if
you find out you need a new USB key.
This reminds me of a recent incident I had with another key (of a
respected brand as well) which failed and disappeared(!) from the bus
while I was writing to it, plugged in on my freebsdgr.org server. Not
only I had to umount -f, but subsequently seems the whole USB subsystem
got 'stuck' and I had to reboot the server for it to work again.
As I said, I have not witnessed 'data fading' in USB flash drives, but
this the third one I throw away due to total hardware failure...